Obama Masks Invoke Huge Sales in Japan

The whole world has gone to pot, even Japan. I should have forseen this when various Japanese cities that share the same name as the new president had celebrations when we won the democratic nomination. The link to my personal blog is on the right, and there is my commentary regarding Obama's inauguration speech to anyone who is interested.

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Friday Review TextFugu

Update: For everyone coming here looking for a review of TextFugu, this post is out of date. It was written when TextFugu was in its infancy, and is a first-impression review. A more accurate and up-to-date review is here. Textfugu makes the incredibly bold statement, “Best way to teach yourself Japanese, guaranteed.” I’ve been meaning to review Textfugu for a while, as Koichi is a hardworking guy who endlessly promotes the Japanese language. He’s a very successful marketer, has a vibrant personality, and is actually dedicated to your success, not his. Well, I wouldn’t wager he’s that selfless, but you get the idea. So, what do I make of his product? It’s a mixed bag, but I’m going to spoil the review by saying I’m glad I bought it. However, that doesn’t mean that Textfugu isn’t without its flaws, so here’s my complete review. Oh, but before that, I’m going to offer a disclaimer. Namely, Textfugu doesn’t yet offer lessons for my level, so a lot of this is the hypothetical if-I-was-st...

Review for LingQ - Redone!

I really wanted to do a review for LingQ , and I wound up doing a long and crazy post about things that didn't have much to do with LingQ. As such, I am redoing this post in hopes of better clarifying what LingQ is and how well it works. For starters, anyone even remotely familiar with Steve Kauffman will know that he's a huge supporter of what is normally called the input method. That basically means that you learn a language simply through exposure to it. No grammar drills, just listening, reading, and anything else you can think of that will expose you to the language. As such, that is exactly what LingQ strives to do. The most frustrating thing about learning an Asian language through the input method, in my opinion, is that if you're reading a book or a non-editable pdf, if you come across a kanji you're not sure how to read, you can't just type it into a dictionary. That frustrates me a lot! That's why LingQ is so good about that. You just hover your mou...

Review for Rosetta Stone

I told you I wasn’t gone for good! Today I’m going to be mostly bashing Rosetta Stone’s language learning software. This review goes for Rosetta Stone whether you’re learning Japanese or any other language that this software purports to teach. It purports to teach because Rosetta Stone is particularly bad at teaching anything, except how to look at pictures and repeat words. It’s aimed mostly for travelers, but doesn’t really get you conversing, and it’s expensive to boot. Really, there’s only a couple things it does well, but this isn’t enough to make up for all the failing this software does. If anyone from Rosetta Stone actually reads this, please use the criticism to improve your software! You probably already know that Rosetta Stone teaches you language easily, right? I mean, that’s what the advertisements always tell us! What Rosetta Stone tells us and what it actually does are like night and day, but if you really don’t know much about Rosetta Stone, here’s what allegedl...

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